


On the line

by HikariYumi



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: And in the end he gets some, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhausted Tony, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lonely Tony, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Phone Calls, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, ficlett, past AoU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariYumi/pseuds/HikariYumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony finally managed to call Bruce, he didn't know what to say, but he didn't want the call to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the line

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there,  
> This little thing kind of wrote itself last night when my brain was a already half asleep. Majinie was so kind to beta the worst out of my terrible writing, but if you find more mistakes, feel free to point them out to me, when you like, so I can learn to make it better.  
> ~Hikari

It had been a while, a long while, since Tony had spoken to someone on the phone because of private matters and even longer since it had been a person who used to be that close.

"Why did you call, Tony? You know, you shouldn't-" 

"Yes, yes, cut it Bruce, I know. You always say that."

Sighing, the engineer slumped down on his desk chair, propping his feet up on the table. Pepper would scold him for that, but Pepper wasn't here to do that, nobody was.

"Then why do you keep calling? Did something happen?" 

In the last weeks Tony had tried to contact his friend a few times, but the other man kept avoiding all messages that were sent. Tonight, though, this one phone call had come through. FRIDAY had channelled it over two satellites and three continents and additionally hid Tony's number so that Bruce fell for it in the end and picked up the call.

"No, nah... Don't you worry. Guess I just wanted to... check if you're still alive." Tony stopped, staring at the beige wall behind his desk. Hadn't he used to own a private art gallery? Why wasn't there a single picture here? "Would be a pity if the maybe other remotely intelligent person on this planet would end up dead." There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, before a dry "yeah, pity". Bruce cleared his throat before announcing: "Okay, listen Tony, I can't talk right now, I've got patients today and you should go to sleep."

The engineer's breath hitched. "No!" He fingered with his Stark phone at his ear, unwilling to let his friend go again, not after it had taken so long for this call to happen. "I could stay on the line. You know, no talking, just keep me there-" Tony noticed how weird that sounded, he really did, but the thought of not being alone right now was too tempting.

Even if there wasn't anybody physically next to him, but merely hearing Bruce talking was enough to settle a bit of the turmoil in Tony's stomach.

"... Tony." A little sigh sounded through the surprisingly good connection. "Under one condition"

"Sure," he responded, maybe a bit too eagerly.

"I'll put you on speaker, but you'll lie down a bit? Nothing more, but get comfortable, will you?"

Of course Bruce could tell, even without being in the same room or even the same state, he could tell what a lot of others couldn't. That Tony was exhausted.

"Yeah, thanks."

"No problem." 

Slowly, the engineer climbed out of his chair again, ignoring the pain in his back like he had done the last few days and shuffled over to the provisional bed on the other end of the room. He hadn't used it once since it was placed there, not because he couldn't use a healthy dose of sleep, but because he wasn't able to get it anymore.

In the past Tony had preferred his time alone, moments and days without people and just surrounded by his work, but now he craved humans, nice ones, those who wouldn't just try to press out a statement for the evening news.

A little sound told the engineer that he was on speaker now, and another second later the phone was placed on a surface, most likely a table. Tony heard Bruce greeting someone, presumably the patient, a woman a bit younger than they were.

The engineers own phone found its way on the mattress next to him, loud enough that he was still able to listen. 

Now that Bruce's dark rumble filled the room, everything seemed less sharp and more fuzzy around the edges. The angry, aggressive darkness had switched places with a warm and loving one, one Tony approved of.

He closed his eyes, telling himself he did that to concentrate better on the words spoken, but truth was he didn't care about the topics. Like this, he was able to pretend Bruce was in the room with him, let the familiar voice embrace and calm him.

Without Tony noticing, his hands had snuck around the little phone, holding it in a kind of protective way. It was okay, no one was here to witness that. He was alone.

Only minutes later the stream of words had washed the man away into the realm of dreams where he would rest for the night as well as the better part of the next day.

When the engineer opened his eyes again, his gaze fell on his phone screen. It was well past twelve and a little green dot showed him that someone was still on the line.

"Good morning, Tony. You said you'd take care of the bill, didn't you?"


End file.
